


Misaligned

by aboxthecolourofheartache



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bureaucracy, Espionage, Gen, conflating concern and jealous hoarding of proprietary research, hot boi couldn't identify An Feeling if it bit him, the unavoidable importance of paperwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aboxthecolourofheartache/pseuds/aboxthecolourofheartache
Summary: Essek sips his tea to save himself from looking at the next report in the box.  It’s from Balenpost.**spoilers for ep.117
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 10
Kudos: 84





	Misaligned

**Author's Note:**

> This is baby's first CritRole fic! Thanks for your patience while I learn the ropes. <3

Shadowhand Essek den Thelyss drifts into his office and pulls the door shut with a neat click. He pauses by the table at the door to remove his gloves. Rosohna is often cold this time of year, colder in its endless night. He shrugs off his mantle, settling it on its padded stand with an easy wave of his hand. The imposing pauldrons and cloak loom like a second, headless person presiding over his entryway. Essek smiles to himself, relishing the pointed irony of the image while he affixes his lighter, workaday epaulettes to the shoulders of his jacket. He smooths his hair, straightens his cuffs, and absently aligns the side seams of his stacked gloves with the edge of the entry table. 

Dropping his levitation from a float to a skim now that he does not have to account for the hem of his mantle, Essek glides over the floor to his beautifully appointed desk. A passphrase and a gesture nullify the protective spell that prevents tampering. He taps the charmed bell as he sits, signalling his secretary to bring in the day’s reports. His fingers flick, and the blinds open to let in the starlight, which gleams on the polished surface of his desk. 

The air in the room is fresh but still, silent but for the regular whir and tick of the miniature arcanograph to his left. Essek can tell without looking that he will need to re-attune it within the week. Something about the approaching winter solstice always seems to pull it out of sync with its full-size counterpart on the roof of his tower. He always means to investigate why this is the case, but he never has the time. 

Other than the stand for his mantle and the shelf of dunamantic reference books behind him, the arcanograph is the only personal touch Essek has lent to his office. Certainly, he picked all the furniture, the color scheme - even the stationery. The space meets or exceeds his standards and imposes the power of the Shadowhand the way he wants it imposed: quiet but not quite understated. Essek draws the tip of a sharp, black nail over the rich leather blotter atop his desk. Everything here is to his taste, yet none of it _his_ in the way the misaligned arcanograph and the books are _his_. Even at home in his towers, he largely keeps to his study and personal suite. 

And his mantle of office? 

The mantle and stand cast a faint shadow in the starlit room. Essek still finds its headlessness darkly funny, but its vague person-shape lifts the fine hairs on his arms today for a reason he cannot pinpoint. It reminds him of echoes, he decides. Essek’s lip curls. He refuses to become a decapitated shadow on anyone’s wall. 

His secretary raps on the door. 

“Enter.” 

They do - with a full box. Irnae has worked long with Essek, long enough that they smile slightly when they set down the box of reports. “A cup of tea, Shadowhand? Or shall I bring the pot?” 

Essek returns the wry smile. “A cup. The pot will only go cold if you leave it.” 

“Straight away?” 

“In an hour, please. I had coffee at breakfast.” 

“Very well, Shadowhand. Is there anything else?” asks Irnae. 

“Thank you, no,” Essek answers. 

He waits until Irnae leaves the office before lifting the first report from the box. Irnae has organized them by seal and by priority, but the contents are for Essek’s eyes only. He lights the candles in the candelabra and cracks the arcane seal on the first report on top of the pile. Essek retrieves a pencil to take notes in the margins, sighs, and settles in to read. 

Paradoxically, his office is safer than his home. He takes notes without worry of being watched, though the healthy/unhealthy paranoia he exercises to retain his position means he takes them in code nonetheless. The Shadowhand is afforded protections that mere Essek den Thelyss is not. His office in the Lucid Bastion all but creaks under its wards. His towers, however private, are not meant to shield state secrets from prying eyes. Essek is not above suspicion, even as master of the Lens. In fact, he is, perhaps, under more scrutiny than most personages in the Dynastic government. 

The only thing more suspicious than actual criminal activity at his level of operation is complete innocence. To that end, he has two illegal saferooms in his towers, both filled with perfectly true but wildly misleading misdeeds. A little illegal alchemical research, a little cache of blackmail, some extortion, a bought trial hushed up, a few skeletons out of the den closet - the sorts of things he would expect to find if he investigated himself, some of it very, very juicy. Any of it would lose him his title without costing him his life. 

He planned treason not in those saferooms, but right here at this very desk. The safest place of all is the confines of his mind, and there are spells capable of breaching even that bastion. So he added another layer of protection by hiding everything in plain sight. Essek is likely the best Shadowhand the Dynasty has had or will ever have, if his ability to obfuscate his own treason is used as a perverse measure. 

His fellow officials and representatives suspect him, of course - but not of treason. 

Essek finishes the first report and flags it with a stamp from the left hand top drawer of his desk, verifying and summarily denying the reporting operative’s call for the discreet assassination of an Empire copper mining mogol. Essek taps his pencil on the desk for a moment before choosing to Send to the operative’s handler. They schedule a performance review with pending intervention. 

He starts on the next report, then the next, and so on until Irnae interrupts him with tea. 

Essek sips his tea to save himself from looking at the next report in the box. It’s from Balenpost. Leads out of Rexxentrum, Zadash, and Palebank Village confirmed Balenpost as the Mighty Nein’s next destination. 

Because he is safer in his office than in his own home, Essek allows himself a maudlin moment to dither over the seal. He’ll break it and read the report, of course. The Mighty Nein are a volatile force of.... Well. They are a volatile force. Essek has minor qualms about damaging any remaining trust by spying; the Shadowhand does not. 

It’s sweet, in a way. They asked once if he was watching them. He saw the question coming from a mile off, but Essek still had three-fourths of a teleportation spell burning while he answered, hyper-aware that most people take ill to surveillance. Instead, they had been… almost pleased? Relieved? As if there were any difference between his observation and anyone else’s, especially in the early days before he felt any affinity for them. 

He knows what his title translates into in Common: Shadowhand. Lost nuance is more than made up for by Common’s aggravating negative connotations about anything involving darkness. In Undercommon, the ‘shadow’ in his ‘Shadowhand’ is neutral and implies artifice, but in the sense of an artificial darkness not unlike Rosohna’s sky. Common reduces it to skulking and unsavory business, which, Essek reflects, is not wrong. In fact, it might be more accurate to what he really is. 

Essek breaks the seal, telling himself he feels bad about doing so. He’s had one report out of Rumblecusp, a confused jumble of phallic imagery and distressed questions from the operative, who is now recuperating under the watchful attention of the Lens’ attached Luxon clerics. The single line missive from a deeply embedded agent in Rexxentrum would have turned Essek’s hair white were it not already. He would kill for details from that visit to Ickithon’s tower, but he is not in the habit of throwing away high-level operatives. 

And now the Mighty Nein have taken up with DeRogna. 

Essek is… concerned. 

He is concerned not as a friend, but as Shadowhand, of course. If the Bright Queen were to hear of the Nein’s increased interaction with the Cerberus Assembly - and she will not, as Essek practices a policy of self-interested, tit-for-tat blind eye towards shady business - there would be quite the welcome party for them the next time they appeared in the Lucid Bastion’s teleportation circle. 

He wonders idly if this is how they felt about him when the first inklings of his misdeeds came to light. Essek has an affinity for them. He likes them. He does not trust them at all, and he hopes they do not trust him. 

The arcane seal on the report is broken, but Essek has yet to unspool the message. He realizes he has been staring into space, tapping the scroll on his desk in time to the tick-whir of the arcanograph. Wrinkling his nose, he sets the scroll aside and opens a filing drawer. Rexxentrum’s academic journals are depressingly easy to acquire outside of the Empire and just as depressingly devoid of anything truly cutting-edge. Essek harbors an idle loathing for the second editor of _The Focus_ , but that is beside the point. 

Essek reviews Vess DeRogna’s latest article for the umpteenth time, fascinated despite himself by the fanatical current beneath the clean professionalism. The woman is confident, lancet-sharp, and completely batshit. He would like to meet her on neutral terms, someday. At a distance. A vicious smile cuts across Essek’s face. If the two of them stood close together, their combined apostasy might finally push the gods to act. 

DeRogna is in Balenpost. Essek retrieves his notes pertaining to her previous expeditions and arranges them to the side, not that he thinks he’ll have much to add to the file. The Dynasty’s own team has not reported in weeks. Their handler in Vurmas still holds out hope, but Essek suspects they are long dead. DeRogna is possessive of her research. Essek cannot fault her for it. He’s killed for his own, after all. And there are other crews in Eiselcross, scavenging the wastes for relics, all of them inclined to defend their proprietary knowledge. Just as with the war, the loss of talent and potential bothers him more than the loss of life. 

The Mighty Nein have a knack for clearing up tangles like this. He has no doubt they will careen into the heart of the matter. They are nothing if not resourceful. There is a possibility they will even learn what happened to the Dynasty expedition, though whether it occurs to them to inform him of any developments is a complete toss-up. And even if the idea occurs to them, they may not choose to share anything they learn. 

Essek catches himself staring into space again, troubled by much more than the hypothetical loss of all of that talent and potential. 

He unrolls the report, frustrated with himself for wasting time. This will be the last he will hear of the Nein for a while, since it isn’t like he can put someone on their tail through the wastes of the far north and with magical observation so hit-and-miss with natural interference. He has scryed on them since their departure from the peace talks. He would be an idiot not to, bruised feelings be damned. The problem with scrying is that it lacks context, and anything seen and overheard is only valuable for how it fits into an overall picture. 

The report begins predictably with updates on shipping, local economics, guard morale - the usual. Essek had asked about port activity and duly the agent has included an abbreviated copy of the harbormaster’s ledger for the past month. The last ship noted is the _Midnight Hammer_. 

His operative notes that the party will be escorted by a guide named Underthorn, though whether this increases their odds of survival, Essek cannot tell. As is their wont, the Nein immediately throw the fort for a loop. Obviously amused, the agent interprets the snow fight as a subtle method of displaying their capabilities, complete with a demonstration of high-level magic. Essek schools the faint smile from his face and continues to read. 

The Nein and DeRogna had dinner, but his agent was unable to get close enough to overhear anything but the bickering over the check. More interesting is the encounter with the guard, who leave almost as soon as they arrive. Then, the Nein depart Balenpost without DeRogna. Essek leans back in his chair. 

An unaccounted for member of the Cerberus Assembly is an international incident waiting to happen. DeRogna is too canny-by-half to underestimate. Essek spends a second Sending, prioritizing a Lens-wide search for the Archmage of Antiquities. 

He clears his desk, unearths the last year’s worth of reports out of Vurmas. Sharp-tipped nails drum lightly on the desktop. He combs the Balenpost missive and delves back months into his records on the Cerberus Assembly’s port outpost. Next, he pours over the aggravatingly slim files on the independent enterprises haunting Eiselcross’s icefields with murderous intent. 

Two hours pass in review and notetaking, until Essek has a partial folio of newly-drawn disturbing conclusions. Another hour passes in deliberation. Choice made, he returns all sensitive information to its respective locked cabinets. The new partial folio, he adds to his wristpocket. 

The Shadowhand summons his secretary. 

Essek is already on his way out the door when they arrive, beckoning his mantle to lift and fly into his outstretched hand. Irnae neatly catches the epaulettes the Shadowhand throws to them. They blink in mild inquiry, too decorous and professional to pull an incredulous face. 

“Irnae, I am going to Vurmas. Start preparations, and by the time you are finished, I should have either permission or a discipline notice with forced leave.” 

Irnae smiles. “Very good, sir,” they call after the Shadowhand’s retreating back. They look down at the tea cart they left just outside the Shadowhand’s office. Steam curls from the fresh cup of expensive tea. Irnae huffs a laugh and takes the cup to their own desk. All that ice to think about, they might as well have something hot to drink.


End file.
